Neil Armstrong’s Moon Bag Could Rake in $4 Million USD at Sotheby's Auction

A pouch from the U.S.A.’s 1969 manned lunar mission is slated to be auctioned off to the public at Sotheby’s in New York. According to the New York Times, the bag will reportedly garner a near $4 million USD price tag. The bag, which has “Lunar Sample Return” written on it, still has remnants of the moon rocks astronaut Neil Armstrong retrieved during the Apollo 11 mission. Many of the artifacts from the historic first trip to the moon have been preserved in museums such as the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and the Museum of Flight.

The moon bag has bounced around since returning to Earth in 1969, but was most recently being held at the NASA Space Center in Texas. However, after a lengthy legal battle in federal court, it was returned to an Illinois lawyer who bought it for $995 USD in 2015. NASA said in a statement that the unique item “was never meant to be owned by an individual.” The moon bag will go on display at Sotheby’s on June 22 – 23, and July 13 before it is auctioned off on July 20.